The recovery of antioxidants from complex winery and grapevine by-products into Vitis vinifera must offers new opportunities for wine grapes by the development of a new, enriched fruit juice. However, this demands the search for new valorization methods to get hold of additional antioxidant compounds. The objective of this study was to find a novel functionality for grape pomace, grapevine leaves, and canes by its reuse as a functional matrix for the extraction of antioxidants into grape must. After thermomaceration, 22 polyphenols were identified by high performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. Grape pomace was a good source of anthocyanins (malvidin-3-glucoside), while flavonols (quercetin-3-hexoside) and phenolic acids (caftaric acid) were the main phenolic compounds in leaf extracts. Catechin dimer was the only polyphenol compound present in all of the matrices. Enriched grape juice comprised by 40:20:40 (v/v/v) of pomace, leaf, and cane extracts, yielded an oxygen radical absorbance capacity of pirogallol red and fluorescein ratio of 0.70, indicating that the reactivity of antioxidants present in enriched grape juice was at least as efficient as other polyphenol-rich beverages. Thus, pomace, leaves and canes supply additional polyphenols to grape must that results into a beverage with promissory antioxidant activity and potential health benefits.

This research was focused on developing means of Tintorera grape (Vitis vinifera L.) waste recovery, devising new value-added uses for that material and optimizing of anthocyanin-rich formulations by spray-drying in order to obtain novel ingredients, all for food industry use. First, the identification of phenolic compounds in Tintorera grape extracts by HPLC-DAD-ESI-MSⁿ enabled characterization of the raw material’s health-promoting characteristics. Maintaining the spray-dried products for 4 weeks’ storage enabled study of the formulation’s loss of anthocyanins and antioxidant properties due to drying process temperatures as well as analysis of the retention and stability of such compounds under different conditions (20 and 40 °C). Tintorera grapes presented a significant amount of Malvidin 3-O-hex (5.66 mg g⁻¹ DW). Anthocyanins in spray-dried formulations were stable for 4 weeks. Optimal conditions in the spray-dryer facilitated the products’ antioxidant capacity; for instance, using 10% maltodextrin (w:v) at 90 °C inlet temperature had a little influence on the reduction in encapsulated malvidin 3-O-hex (15%) and presented 3.35 mg GAE g⁻¹ DW of total polyphenol contents, 98.62 µmol Trolox (FRAP assay), and 39.97 µmol Trolox (DPPH assay). Principal component analyses (PCA) showed a high degree of dependence between anthocyanin content and maintenance of antioxidant capacity during storage. These results offer a promising alternative for the industrial management of wine-making wastes in order to implement a sustainable protocol for development of Tintorera grape extracts rich in bioactive compounds for new beverages and functional foods.